The next morning, we were woken up early and marched outside, where each of us was given different chores. I was then led to a kitchen and spent the entire day scrubbing pots and pans.

When I returned late in the evening, my three roommates were just sitting around, playing cards, and having fun. This bothered me. We were supposed to be spending this time cultivating. If we weren’t careful, there might be someone like my old instructor from the Su Clan who came and started killing people to make a point.

I entered the room silently to not make a scene, quietly sat on my bed, and picked up the cultivation technique that I’d been given.

However, before I could open it, Ko spoke up to stop me. “Put that down for a while. Come join us. Don’t worry about that thing.”

I glanced at him. “Aren’t we supposed to be cultivating? We need to be careful, or the boss might get angry. We need to try and advance to Martial Disciple 4 like he wants, right?”

Ko looked at the other two boys, who nodded their heads. They all stood up as one, and Ko looked at me. “Stay here for a moment.” Then, moving furtively, the group snuck out of the dormitory.

Less than a minute later, Ko carefully opened the door and slid back inside alone. He walked close to me and started talking in a quiet voice. “Listen, you’re new to the city, right? I’ve not seen ya on the streets before. You must’ve come in from some farm somewhere. You don’t know how things work ‘round here, so I’ll give you a few warnings. Don’t read that technique. Don’t cultivate. No matter what they tell you, don’t do it.”

“What… do you mean?” His words sounded threatening, so I thought I might need to defend myself, but looking at his expression, I could feel that he was actually concerned about me.

“I’ve known guys who came here before. The treatment’s pretty good. Get a free house and food, but ya gotta make sure you don’t read that book. Otherwise, they’re gonna to trap ya here.”

He glanced around the room and peered deeply into the shadows, worried that someone would overhear him. “This guy, right, well, he’s a couple years older than me. Well, he came here like all of us, to get a free place to live and earn a little money. Well, he had this idea. He’s gonna cultivate up to level three or whatever. Then, he’d return to the street like a king. With the power he got, he would be able ta lord over us out there. Thing is, he never came back. The guys who were with ‘em said after he started cultivating, his mind began to change. All he could think about was how to make the boss happy. He just wanted a keep advancing that technique of theirs.”

“But… aren’t you all here to cultivate? Why else would you come here?”

Ko shook his head sharply. “No. You see, as long as ya work and do the job, you get free food for a year. They don't pay us much, but everything we get is free here. Ya just gotta do the job, and the money's yers ta keep. Ya don’t need to cultivate. You can just walk out after that, and no one’ll say anything. If ya cultivate, though, you’re gonna be trapped here for the rest of yer life.”

I hadn’t expected the boys who came here as servants to know so much. If this had been happening for a long time, sure, they would pick up on some things, but to know how dangerous it was to cultivate? I hadn’t expected that.

Still, while I understood what he was saying, it didn’t change what I needed to do. If I wanted to stay in the palace, if I wanted to live long enough to see the death of Du XiongMing, then I had to be a Martial Master. So, I would cultivate. I just wouldn’t let it affect me the way they thought it would.

Of course, if I did this, it would change my place in this group, but I had already accepted that I would never be a true ‘brother’ to these young men. Instead, I was just concerned that I would have to change my plans. If they weren’t going to cultivate at all, then staying only slightly ahead of them wasn’t going to work. I would have to figure out how fast to cultivate on my own.

“Sorry, Ko, but this is something I have to do. I understand what you’re saying, and you’re right, but this is something I have to do.”

Ko shook his head again quickly. “Look, I understand. Ya’ve had a tough life, but this isn’t the way to do it. Just… think about what I said. Oh, and don’t talk to nobody about this. If the boss hears we’ve been saying things about cultivation, they might punish us or expel us, so just keep it quiet.”

After speaking, he went to the door and knocked twice. Then, the two other boys reentered the room.

They had been serving as lookouts to ensure that no one from the palace overheard our conversation. But… should that have worked? If the palace was actually worried about Ko sharing what he knew about cultivation techniques, then they could have used a thousand different ways to eavesdrop on our conversation without any of us mere mortals being able to detect it.

Since I hadn’t noticed anything of the sort in qi vision, I had to assume that the palace didn’t really care. In fact, they might have wanted Ko to spill the beans. Only then would I be able to make a conscious choice to ignore his warnings and cultivate anyway.

As I was about to pick the technique manual back up, Tu spoke up to stop me. “Fang, come over here and join us for cards. I need some help to take these bastards down.”

I saw a pleading look in his eyes, like he really wanted me to join them. I knew what I would have to do, but I didn’t have to do it that night. So, I sat down and played some cards.

For the rest of the week, during the day, I was assigned various chores that involved washing things around the complex, and at night, any time I moved to pick up the cultivation technique, one of my roommates would find an excuse to pull me away from it.

I didn’t need that book to cultivate, but it was unique enough that I needed to get it stored in my mental library for future research. And to do that, I would need to find time to sit down and read it carefully without interruption. Since that didn’t seem likely, I decided to implement an idea I had been thinking about since my visit to the libraries of Eight Flower’s Metal District.

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“System, I want to add a new capability to my mental library. I want a perfect copy of any book I touch to be directly added to the library.”

Host’s current mental library is capable of storing information up to Rank 3. Upgrading the library to store any information at Rank 3 or below upon touch. Cost 10 million credits.

I had enough points to make that happen, but it was more than I wanted to spend at the moment.

“How much to just apply this upgrade to mortal and Rank 1 information?”

Cost 100,000 credits.

Much better. “Purchase.”

Purchase confirmed. 149,833,275 credits remaining.

I reached for the cultivation technique that I had been given and gave it a light tap. Then, with a thought, I checked my mental library and found that it had successfully been stored away.

That technique would serve as interesting research material for the future, but with it safely stored away, looking into it more deeply could wait. Instead, I shifted my focus to cultivating the Subdued Waves Mantra. I wasn’t sure how fast our boss was expecting our cultivation bases to grow, but with only an hour or two to cultivate before bed each day, it wouldn’t exactly be fast. So, I didn’t worry too much and just cultivated at a leisurely pace that felt natural.

At the end of the week, we had a day off. A different group of servants would be taking over our duties so that we had a little time to relax.

At first, I was a little surprised at this, since it seemed strange that the palace would give its servants any free time at all. From what I’d seen in the city, everybody was working all the time. Then, I realized what this time was for. It was to allow us to cultivate without interruption. The people in charge wanted us to advance, and we needed time to do so.

I was considering doing as our overseers wanted and cultivating the entire day, but Ko came over and pulled me out of the dormitory with the others.

“Come on. We’re going to the city.” He glanced around furtively. “You know, the girls are going there, too. We might get a chance to spend some time with them. I think MeiMei might even have a bit of a crush on you.”

I froze. I didn’t know who MeiMei was, but the name… I wasn’t willing to pursue any ideas about someone with that name.

Ko saw my reaction and didn’t bring up the girls again, but he didn’t take no for an answer. He insisted that I go with them into the city, no matter what.

The four of us walked to a poorer district I hadn’t visited before. Ko said that there was a place to get some good food there, so I followed them. They took me to a stall where a lady had a big pot of meat simmering in a light stew. On the side, she had a few small buns with several more cooking in an oven.

“Old Liu, four roujiamo!” announced Ko.

She gave him a wide grin. “Right away, Young Master Ko.”

They both seemed happy, and it felt like this ritual had been played out countless times before.

The woman took the buns one at a time, split them open, filled them with meat, then drizzled a little stew on top. She finished them off with a few sprigs of a green herb.

“Here you are. 48 copper for the lot.”

Ko took out a large copper coin and two smaller ones, placed them on the counter, and took his sandwich. When the other two boys followed suit, I went ahead and did the same. Spending an entire week's income on this one meal was insanely extravagant, but from Ko’s and the others' expressions, they seemed to feel it was worth it.

After taking a bite, I was amazed that the owner of the stall had been able to create such a complex blend of rich, savory, and spicy flavors in such inexpensive food. Ko saw the look on my face and couldn’t help but comment on it.

“I told you. This is the good stuff. Expensive, so it’s a bit of a treat for our first day off, but there’s no better way to spend your coin. If you want meat in the future, though, better to stick with donkey. It’s a lot cheaper.”

I was somewhat alarmed at the idea of eating donkey meat, and when the flash of fear showed on my face, the other boys couldn’t help but laugh. Had that just been a joke?

We walked down the street as we talked, but we were soon stopped by two groups of boys facing off against each other. I wanted to retreat immediately, but Ko calmed me down and pulled me forward to take a look.

“Don’t worry. Things aren’t gonna get too outta hand here. This is just a small fight for territory. Both of ‘em are cultivators, and one’s probably advanced recently, so he’s lookin’ ta take over a few more streets. They won’t bother us if we don’t bother them.”

“You think you can take me now?” The larger boy stared down at his opponent, puffed out his chest, and cracked his knuckles. “Sounds like you need to learn a little respect.”

His opponent smirked. “You don’t stand a chance. I’m not the same person I was last time. I’ve advanced. I’m now a High Middle Martial Disciple 2, just like you. If you don’t want to get hurt, leave now!”

The large boy laughed. “You think just advancing to High Middle Disciple 2 is enough to defeat me? You’ve only just advanced while I’ve been at this stage for months. I’ve already advanced to Middle High Middle Disciple 2!”

His opponent’s eyes widened in shock, but he gritted his teeth and kept his feet planted.

I looked at Ko, confused. “Middle High Middle?”

He nodded. “You might not know, but Martial Disciple is the first realm of cultivation. It’s divided up into several stages. 1, 2, 3, and so on. Well, each stage is a pretty big gap, so they’re divided up into Low, Middle, High, and Peak. Just because two people are at Middle Disciple 2, though, doesn’t mean they’re equal. Those two are both High Middle Disciple 2, so they can defeat most other Middle Disciple 2s.”

I blinked at him wordlessly.

“Now, Shin there is a Middle High Middle, but Yang just advanced, so he should only be Low High Middle. Their power is nearly the same, but even the smallest advantage can mean the difference between life and death.”

My mind went blank for a second at the absurdity of it all. Did these boys have any affinities at all? Even with a low nine-star affinity, Martial Disciple 2 shouldn’t be very challenging to skip right through. Why did they need so many substages?

I watched as the two finally started fighting, but there was little to see. They didn’t use any qi. They just started throwing punches and kicks at each other, and they weren’t even good at that. If this was what the competition was like, it finally made sense to me why Ko had said someone thought he could rule the streets by only advancing to Martial Disciple 3.

After the boys had fought for about a minute or so, their small gangs joined in on the scuffle. That’s when Ko suggested we should hurry and leave. We didn’t want to get caught in a mess if the fighting drew the attention of actual cultivators.

After spending the day in town, the boys all returned to the dormitory, and I began secretly cultivating.

They were living the simple life of mortals and facing mortal issues. Their biggest concerns were where they would sleep for the night and where their next meal was going to come from. They didn’t have to deal with the plots of Lords and Kings.

I couldn’t help but think back to Old Pei. He was what these boys would become one day. He had lived a life of sorrow and was never able to climb out of the poorest district in the city. That was the destiny of most mortals in this world.

There had to be some that rose above their station. Honest craftsmen could earn more than a street vendor, and there certainly had to be mortal merchants who were able to become quite wealthy, but all of it was balanced on a razor's edge. The moment they made a cultivator upset, their life would end in an instant.

I wished I could change it, but even with the immense power the System granted me, I had no idea how to even begin. I could help those I met. I could provide something for the people who were kind to me. But I couldn’t fix the structural problems of this society. Even if I did, any changes I made would just disappear upon my death.

I sighed. Looking at the boys around me, I finally understood the true meaning of “We are from two different worlds.”